Modern Vespa

My 47" LG TV cost me nothing.



My son gave it to me when his wife wanted it out of their apartment.



He took pity on us for our 19" CRT.

Last edited by JKJ-FZ6 on Thu, 26 Jan 2023 14:57:42 +0000; edited 1 time

It runs the spectrum like you can get a notebook for $500 or $5000. I'm very often buying top of the line Mac equipment for clients and it's more in the $5000 range. My TV was about $3,500 I think. It looks real pretty.

https://baybloorradio.com/sony/sony-oled-tv/sony-xr55a95k

I haven't owned a tv since the mid eighties. I don't think I missed anything and it makes me happy to think of all that extra time I had to use on hobbies, family and friends. 😀

I did that for about 10 years but now actually don't mind having a TV. With on-demand and streaming, there is a lot of really good content. Best part is I had a decade of some really good movies (like Pulp Fiction) to catch up on. The funny thing is I worked in IT in advertising for that entire period and so my paycheck came from a lot of what I wasn't watching.

Honestly, it's a life-balance thing and almost no one from Toronto has family nearby as it's one of those cities. You come here for your career and move on like I am next year after about 25 years. My parents are Australian, I have a brother in Boston, a sister in Florida and another sister in Windsor. We're all from Montreal which as Anglophones was a city many of us left after a lot of political crap went down. A bit of a tangent but just pointing out is in a different point in life and not all media content is bad.

In the cheering you up front I make/made a good living working with a lot of Apple products professionally and enjoyed a lot of it. Part of what I do is run IT for the largest Mac-based architecture firm in Canada and at the top for North America as a whole. I do really miss the days when Apple cared about the enterprise and we had Xserves and XSANS plus a decent UNIX based server OS to work with. I remember using vi to code BIND when Apple just dipping their feet into UNIX and a server OS. It was a lot of fun and they had a great team up here in TO for enterprise support. Those days are long gone though and you can barely get file sharing working properly with SMB nowadays and forget about AFP.

As I close in on retirement, I've been burning a lot of "banked" vacation. We've had a week of the beautiful crystal clear weather at Lake Tahoe. This cheers me up!


Skiing on Tuesday

Snowshoeing on Wednesday

From my fuel leak gripe on the PYO thread:
The dealer is collecting the bike tomorrow afternoon for a warranty claim.

UPDATE:
The BMW dealer delivered my R9T back to my home this afternoon
all fixed under warranty and sparkling clean.

No charge

We have this stupid little dog. I didn't want a dog, but about 12 years ago I was out running and there was this stupid little dog yapping at me on the trail. I ignored it, figuring it would go home.

On my way back it hadn't. I noticed it was tangled in it's harness. So, being me, I picked it up and carried it home. What? It was really hot out.

We put the dog in the kiddie pool outside to cool it off. It had tags, so we decided to look for the owner.

We spent about a month checking vets, the Humane Society, kennels, putting up signs ... I even walked the neighborhood where I found her knocking on doors.

I mentioned 12 years ago. She's still with us. A little grayer, a lot less teeth and she sleeps in the middle of the bed between me and my wife.

In the morning, as I'm backing out of the driveway headed to work, my wife stands at the kitchen window, Isabelle in her arms, and they wave at me. My wife even has her blow puppy kisses at me through the window.

Even on bad days it's a bright spot that I carry with me all day. I don't know what I'd do without my stupid little dog.

Warm shower.

Yesterday I had the day off so didn't do my usual early morning shower. Usually the water warms up in a minute or so (a bit chilly at first in winter too as it runs near an external wall). It warmed up to.....tepid and stayed there. Of course I was already naked and wet, so showered while reminiscing about camping and the like. Went down to check the water heater (which is getting a bit long in the tooth and worth a bit of worry). Pilot light was out, so relit it. Some time later went out again which was a bit more unnerving, but this time stayed lit.

Forgot all about it this morning, so when the water started coming out nicely warm, life was just a bit better.

Side note - I was amazed when I came to the US a few years ago that people still had appliances with pilot lights. I hadn't seen one in the UK since the early '80s. Fully half the gas used by the average water heater of that type is down to the pilot light! Save money and the planet by upgrading.

At least the pilot light on a water heater helps keep the water hot, unlike the pilot light on a range or house heater which does nothing except wait. It's also vented, so it doesn't contribute to indoor pollution.

That said, it's still better to be phasing these things out.

This might very well be a signal that the water heater is kaput. Condensation can sometimes knock out pilot lights, but if it happens more than once, the tank might be starting to leak. If it's old, then this is all the more likely.

Sounds logical. Let's at least see if we get through the weekend.
Here's my chance to step up in efficiency.


Can I move this over to What's Pissing Me Off Today?

Last year, I had just barely gotten myself out of a situation and could barely catch my breath, let alone seriously consider what I wanted to do next. A year ago today, on a whim, I signed up for some adult classes. Didn't even know if I'd actually be able to take them or not.

Now, I'm 1/4 of the way through getting a degree, and I'm totally crushing it.

Proof that you CAN buy (or adopt) love...!

A few degrees Celsius,a beautiful day and groceries are done. Dropping them off at home and going for a ride. About 350 kms on her which isn't bad seeing as she arrived Christmas eve and its winter riding season.

Don't want to bump the thread with new posts so this is an edit.

I love riding when there are big fluffy flakes of snow and it isn't sticking to the roads. You do have to be careful with the timing and I don't wander far unless on the Ural. It is however incredibly peaceful and serene. The wee little tower in the background is part of what helps put the food on the table so to speak as I run the IT for the architecture firm.

Finally got my bikes delivered to my new spot from Oregon. What was supposed to take 2 1/2 weeks took 2+ months. But they are safe and sound ready to roll....

Scooter refresh day.

New seat and pulled off the crash bars.
Also got the valves done (what a pita that was compared to the LX) and a new spark plug.

Even got whitener for the finish!

Looking good!

It does look like a new scoot.
And shed 5kg.

Here's my trick for levering the rocker into place. Disconnect shock and use a reversed clamp to push the engine and frame apart.

All without graphite?

I think this cannabis cbt oil I've just started a few days ago is working. more sleep and less painkillers. still not at target dosage but going well.

I have considered trying some of that but at least around here I would question the quality of what you see for sale. Seems like all kinds of places selling it from drug store to gas stations. Not sure if there is any kind of structure in place that would be regulating the potency or anything else.

mine is prescribed by a doctor (most can't even prescribe it) and bought through a pharmacy (most don't have it in stock). it's the only way you can get in in Australia. It has a defined content and is approved / regulated by the government

Enjoying the clean look of my newly installed SIP Pordoi black swing arm. This thing is a ridiculous piece of aluminum....

I love love love that companies are making stuff like this now.

I really wish it were actually visible, though.

I have been eyeballing this swing arm for a few years now. I ended up just painting the existing one. Do you have any other close up photos? I assume the there was some weight savings vs. the original?

The weight is the only real difference besides aesthetics. It felt different the first few rides. I thought it might be the different pivot points but I remembered I also got new tires so who knows...

A Vespa buddy and I rode 220km on a ride last Sunday.
We both filled up today and we averaged 37km/litre fuel economy.
That translates to 87m/USgal or 107m/gal.
Consumption is 2.7lt/100km.


(2018 GTS and 2021 GTS HPE)

Agreed especially if you're going to fumigate the place for pests all those pilots lights need to be off.

Probably a silly little thing, but I just noticed that my BMW g310gs "moos" as it cools down, albeit a higher note from the GTS. I didn't realize that I liked the noise and how much I missed it from my Vespa until I heard it.

A small and extremely silly thing. We were told to make sentences using the newest Chinuk Wawa vocabulary we'd learned, and I managed to Rickroll my teacher last week (most of my classmates caught on just before she did):

x̣awqaɬ nayka mash mayka.

I take my amusement where I can get it.

Just had 25 cu yards of wood chippings delivered FREE. About 340 barrow-loads...

That'll mulch both the back yard and the front - and hopefully also extract a rebate from the water company for going drought resistant.

Yikes!
Draught resistant because you sweat so much you don't need it to rain for the next year?

There is that...

The wood chippings are free because otherwise the tree surgeon people would have to pay for disposal. Beats $35 a yard for coloured bark.

But wouldn't covering the yard with wood chips be something of a fire hazard? Just thinking if somehow a fire got started it would smolder in the layer of chips.

But what do I know I can have more problems with too wet areas of my yard especially like now until well in the early summer!

I took prescribed Marinol for many years. Then I just got tired of it because I was getting too fat. I don't think that's indicated for pain though.

It's raining and I can cancel the lesson and finish for the day with a very difficult bunch of kids teaching cycle training to them and get on with stripping a scooter engine.